


Such Is The Force of Happiness

by Handsomerogers (Theconsultingdetective)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Buck loves his goats, Feel-good, Goats, M/M, Post-Civil War, Recovery, Slice of Life, Wakanda, recovering bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 08:50:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14745711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theconsultingdetective/pseuds/Handsomerogers
Summary: Maybe Bucky’s favourite thing about Wakanda is the fact that people are excited to see him.(Set post-CW, after Buck comes out of cryo. Title from the eponymous Emily Dickinson poem)





	Such Is The Force of Happiness

Maybe Bucky’s favourite thing about Wakanda is that people are excited to see him. It’s a rare feeling for him; he hasn’t felt it since before he was the Winter Soldier, and the guy he was back then doesn’t even feel like him sometimes. 

But nowadays, people smile at him. When he arrives at the market with goat’s milk and fresh eggs and bread to sell or trade, people wave at him. Little kids braid his hair and call him _ingcuka emhlophe_ , White Wolf. He lets them ride on his shoulders and referees their games of soccer, and they make him little bracelets out of beautiful beads strung on animal sinew. 

He finds he has a knack for taking care of animals; his goats don’t butt him, at least, not without provoking. He gives some of them Western names, like Maggie and Sarah and Rebecca, after people he’s lost. The one W’kabi gives him, who he couldn’t keep because he liked to fight the rhinos, he names Steve. Some of them are named by the children, things like _sidenge_ , stupid, and _intle_ , pretty, and some come to him with names already. He volunteers to work with W’kabi’s rhinos, because he doesn’t mind to get thrown around a bit, and ends up getting pretty close to some of them. He knows how it feels to be angry and trapped and to not understand anything, so he’s patient with them, and gentle, and eventually, they turn as docile as his goats. (Well, all of them but Steve.) 

The days in Wakanda are long and beautiful. It’s not as hot as he imagined; it’s warm, though, which is a welcome change. When he takes the goats out to pasture, sometimes with the village children in tow, he always finds something new--a little brook running through the brush, a crooked tree that provides some shade, wild fruit he snacks on and flowers that he braids into crowns. He has a fair amount of crowns; he wears one, and sells others, and gives some as gifts. 

Another one of the things he loves is the clothes. They’re so different than the Western things he used to wear, and even more of a departure from the tac gear. They’re all soft, and richly dyed, and some are run through with shiny metal embroidery. They hang off his body, and are cool, and comfortable, and they make him feel more human again. When he takes the goats out, or trains with the rhinos, he carries a tall staff with a little knot at the top that helps him keep his balance, and between that and the outfit and his long hair, he looks like the paintings in the cathedral Steve sometimes went to when they were kids.

Things aren’t perfect for Bucky, in Wakanda. Steve isn’t there, and he misses him like hell every day. The rarity of rain is something of an adjustment, too. But hell, it’s good to not have voices in his head, and to have his own place, and to have the goats and the children in town and the rhinos all needing him in one way or another. 

And when Steve visits, and it rains, things are almost perfect. The goats bleat, and the cicadas chirp, and Bucky gets to rest his head on Steve’s chest like he wants to most every night. When he thinks about it, Bucky’s favourite thing about his new life isn’t the way people treat him, or the clothes, or the goats or anything--it’s not even about Wakanda at all. It’s just being okay, being able to be with Steve, being able to kiss him and talk with him, being able think his own thoughts and make his own choices. That’s the best part, of this life and of his first life and of any life he could ever live, and it always will be.

**Author's Note:**

> It's good to be back writing! This is my first ever published Marvel fic. Keep your eyes peeled for the multi-part Stucky chapfic about Steve and Bucky recovering post...well, everything. 
> 
> Find me on tumblr at handsomerogers.


End file.
